Detroit Lions Defense Just Did What We All Hoped For

all right everybody I told you if you if you haven't watched it yet we did a little risers and fallers from the offensive side of the football I want to do that on the defensive side there's just so many things and later on this week I'm sure I will take out some individual players and talk about it but I just decided to do a little longer form video here than we usually do that standard eight minutes to 10 and we're going longer with these we'll see if this ends up being longer but I want to talk about the defensive side of the ball the defensive side of the ball I've always said can be a little harder to watch um it can be a little harder to focus in on who's doing it you notice when people make a big play like Brandon Joseph with his interception which is why I would say a stock is up but like there was a lot more being played so you really have to go back and you have to watch it and with a preseason game it's not easy to always do and you also have to understand there was a lot of rain but there's one or two players in specific that I think their stock is up and then there's a few players with their stock down which I think is interesting after 143 preseason game there are more offensive players with their stock up than defensive players which I thought was unique but the first one I want to talk about is uh Andis rraw Jr our second round corner and tell me if you've had this thought I think because we picked tyon Arnold in the first round rake straw doesn't feel like a second round Corner maybe it's our history with second round corners right with teas Taber now we've got SLE big play SLE all right but like there it seems like we can't get a win at the cornerback position so for some reason there's something about rra that feels like a fourth or fifth round pick and I think he's a phenomenal player in my brain I can't get over that and the fact is he is a second round player he is a phenomenal Talent he's a good good football player and he showed that against good competition um and here's the thing you're like oh it was a preseason game no he was going up against Malik neighbors he was going up against Jaylen hayatt and that's one of the things that I love I I think when we saw his stats and we saw his athletic profile coming out of college one of the biggest concerns is always with corners and this is because we've been burned I'll say tease Taber again I'll say okuda is are they fast enough to stick with the speed of NFL receivers he's stuck and didn't allow any Separation on a go route from Malik he um tackled wide receiver Jaylen Hyatt on a Crosser and didn't allow a yard on the play stuck with him all along the way um he was fighting with Hyatt all the way up the sidelines ending in a field goal like there was a lot of plays that he made very well against guys that are known for what speed and that is one of the things that I absolutely loved about his game his stock is absolutely up now here's the other thing we know we have tyon Arnold we know we have Carl Davis the outside seems to be locked up but now with the injury to Mosley which is just really unfortunate the Detroit Lions have an opening in the slot as well so or they played him a lot at the slot or nickel if you want to call it that right which makes sense all right he at the nickel going uh against the Giants he played a lot of snaps in the nickel and he absolutely held his own it's not something that he did a ton of but he did do he did do that in college so his stock is absolutely up after showing positional versatility against multiple different types of Defenders he also had a couple of good tackles in the game as well all right what about stock down all right let's keep it in the secondary we have a stock down on moris Norris all right now he did get the start in this game which I thought was kind of interesting Maurice Norris if you don't know who he is he was an undrafted free agent out of Fresno State I don't even think I highlighted him on anything he's a 4540 guy I think he's I think they have him listed at 456 um Is His official 40 time um according to NFL draft scout.com all right you can see that here um he he doesn't he doesn't wow you with anything he's 510 he's 180 lbs like he honestly is an undersized Corner playing safety so he's even smaller uh it seemingly is that and so you worry about his ability against the Run fits um gray the running back for the Giants who got away for that touchdown remember the guy who he left just picking up his jock strap in the middle of the field that was Maurice Norris now I've seen great players in a play like that in open space do the exact same thing Mike sander still for from Michigan now playing for the commanders was second round pick he's going to be the starting nickel cornerback this year same thing in the National semifinal game happened against Alabama when they get through the hole and it's just you and nothing but field anywhere else and a running back has time to make room he should make you look dumb that is the way it goes it's still not a good look and I think what happens there when you have that combined with Joseph getting an interception combined with Joseph not making any bad plays all of a sudden you have have to say hey maybe maybe Joseph has some stock up going into this one as we as we look at the um depth chart here at the safety position it gets full really fast you have branch and Joseph as your starters melaan wo is absolutely there we know before the whole gambling thing that CJ Moore could play a little bit at safety but is a special teams Ace all right he was a very good special teams player for us so if you're keeping four safeties it looks like these are the four right here Branch Joseph melano and Joseph after watching that preseason game the fifth safety would be CJ Moore Maurice Norris sorry man I think you're the odd man out on this one it could be Moore and Norris but I wouldn't be surprised to see them keep five just because they could be helpful with the new kickoffs and um also because Branch may be needing to slide into that nickel roll every once in a while as well so that is um stock down all right so there's kind of our big stock up stock down two players um one up is rraw one down is Norris the up is Joseph because of Norris but then you have another one so I have uh another stock down that nobody's talking about and it's very weird to me that nobody's talking about this and and it results in another guy having his stock up and then by at the end of this I'll talk about some of the injuries on the defensive side of the ball that we had as well stock down is James Houston like they're saying that he had a little bit of an injury thing um you know they he's dealing with what is it a kneebone bruise injury uh but he did not play well in this game and he should be playing well going up against reserves and quite frankly when he's going to the sideline when they're showing him he seems seems disengaged and I don't quite understand that and he's doing all of that why Isaac uku is just having the game of his life right Isaac guku is having the game of his life so I think stock down is James Houston and I'm gonna say it right now I was unwilling to commit to this easier earlier I don't think he makes this football team I don't think he does I think that uku just put himself ahead of James Houston I've heard really good things from Mitchell agude out of practice I didn't really see those in the game uh he kind of disappeared in the game but it's not good uh it's not good for him it's not and therefore your stock up has to be on uku all right and in this game uku did some things all right he absolutely did some things um there were a couple of sacks I do believe one of them was bradick Martin who looked better than I thought he would he would be a semi up if if you were if you were talking stock right like he would be my semi up and I just thought like as I as I look at it I'm just like well that's actually pretty darn good that's pretty darn good um he had the one where he got pressure after a double team the guard kind of faded away to help protect on uku and bradrick Martin gets in there and uh he kind of whiffs but gets a hand on him and then uku finishes up the sack what I thought was really good about uku was there was a run play to the right where he set the edge not only did he set the edge but he got the tackle for a one- yard loss so he ends the game I believe with what but based on my eyes two sacks and a tackle for loss I could have missed other things as well so that got me looking more into uku and I know Chris talked about him as well but I just want to talk about this guy all right the only part of his grade that's poor that wouldn't be considered NFL already is his uh height but he makes up for that cuz he has 33in arms that's actually pretty good arm length coming off the edge and with those longer arms he has a crazy bench press the dude is strong in the upper body very very strong he's very explosive he just has all the makings of a really good athlete uh the agility grade would show a little stiff hip syndrome but I'm telling you right now like uku is the guy right now if for my money he's over James Houston and he's he's going to make the team the one thing uku can't do that they want Houston to be able to do is drop back into coverage all right but Houston can't do it either so whether there's room on this team for him or not I don't fully no all right injuries I told you James Houston had that kind of knee bone bruise thing uh Nate Lynn uh left with a shoulder injury but only bada had the big big defensive injur injury uh he had an Achilles injury he was playing a really good game kind of playing that you know D tackle can slide outside roll kind of like where J what kind of like what a Josh Pascal thing would be um little bit bigger bada was another guy who just looks jacked right um I I think he tore his killes so that's unfortunate he's not going to be making this team but overall on a rainy night uh in a let's just call it for uh Spade spade for what it was it was a boring preseason game it was and maybe that's because we had joint practices the week of so it's just super Bland during the game itself maybe it's because um all of the chippiness got out during those practices maybe it's because it's a half full Stadium maybe it's because it was raining I I don't know uh but or maybe quite frankly it was just bad quarterback play like I know this is about the defense but if you have bad quarterback play it's not fun football to watch and side note that's why the UFL that's why the usfl that's why the XFL struggles so much to take off is because it's usually pretty bad quarterback play that's why the Canadian football league is so popular in Canada because they set up the rules so that the quarterback play is really good so that is just just a couple thoughts for you there but wanted to do a little longer video give you a full rundown of what we saw on the defensive side of the ball now that we finally get to watch football for the first time in so so long so nice to be able to get eyes on it all right thanks for watching everybody really hope you enjoy uh what we're doing here hit that like button hit that subscribe button if you haven't already we're over 12 minutes into a video it must be decent enough for you so uh thanks for watching really do appreciate uh this community all right see you